Will The International Community Abandon Somalia Again?

Ethiopia has announced its intention to withdraw its forces from Somalia by the end of the year. That will leave, assuming they’re willing to stay on in the absence of the Ethiopians, about 3,000 African Union troops from Uganda and Burundi who only patrol a small area of Mogadishu. In addition, there are some NATO and other nation’s naval vessels off the Somali coast, engaged in anti-piracy missions.

Is this the signal that the international community is preparing to abandon Somalia once again? Can they afford to in light of the militant group likely to take over and the ongoing piracy controversy?

That remains to be seen. But in 1995, the UN withdrew from Somalia, ending an abortive three-year effort to promote reconciliation and restore civil order. At that time, I quoted former US Ambassador Daniel Simpson as saying:

“The world may have bitten off more than it could chew in terms of trying to bring the Somalis to a government."

He says the United Nations tried many approaches in a bid to promote peace but to no avail.

"None of them worked very well or some of them worked partly but we never really quite got there because the Somalis themselves lacked the will to form a government."

Ambassador Simpson says the world now understands Somalia better than it did before its intervention -- maybe well enough to realize that only Somalis themselves can decide their own fate.

"People who look at the Somali situation now with even a small amount of optimism operate from the premise that it may be that now that the foreigners are actually leaving Somalia, the Somalis themselves may be able to get together, close the door, inside the family and say, okay, now it's time to wrap it up and make a government."

At the time, I concluded by stating:

There is little optimism in Somalia at the moment -- and some observers fear the country may be in line for yet another convulsive outburst of violence despite the apparent war-weariness of many Somalis. And that could mean Somalia will go back to square one, back to the anarchic way things were in 1992 before the United Nations intervened. The only difference this time is that no one outside of Somalia is likely to care enough to try to come to its assistance once again.

Well, they did try again and that hasn’t appeared to work either. So what now?

VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu in Nairobi reports the current fragile government is deeply worried about the impending Ethiopian pull-out.

Somalia's Deputy Speaker of Parliament Osman Elmi Boqore says if Ethiopian troops leave Somalia next month, the government, which depends heavily on Ethiopian forces to protect it from insurgent attacks, may cease to exist.

The deputy speaker says the Ethiopians should not leave before the deployment of a more robust African Union peacekeeping unit, which can protect the government and maintain security.

The ongoing violence has dampened enthusiasm for the deployment of several thousand more AU peacekeepers in Somalia. And a U.N. peacekeeping force called for in the Djibouti accord has yet to be formed.

Earlier this week during an interview with a local news agency, Ethiopia's Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin openly lashed out at Somali leaders, saying they "have shown little, or at times, no readiness to shoulder responsibility for the situation in Somalia."

A spokesman for fighters in the Islamic Courts Union, Abdurahim Isse Adow, tells VOA that while he welcomes the announcement of an Ethiopian withdrawal, he remains skeptical that it will happen.

Adow says if Ethiopian troops, who are seen as an occupying force, left Somalia, it would stop much of the violence and bloodshed in the country. But he says there is still no evidence to suggest that the Ethiopians are serious about pulling out.